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So you're thinking about a garden room?
You’re certainly not alone! Garden rooms have become increasingly popular in the UK and it’s hard to open a newspaper without a section about this trend.
Searches for ‘garden room’ on Google in the UK (2010-2018)
With the rise of the self-employed and a workforce moving from the office to the home, a garden office separated from the house is at the top of the list for many. For others, it may be a guest room or a space to pursue a hobby. It’s really important to have in mind how your garden room will be used before you start building so I’ll list some ideas here to help get you fantasising about your escape at the end of the garden.
- Workshop
- Home office
- Games room
- Cinema room
- Art Studio
- Music room
- Man cave
- Gym
- Guest House
- Model railway
- Teenage Hangout
- Bar
- Pool/Jacuzzi
- Classroom
You certainly don’t have to choose just one – as you’ll see in Part 3, I designed my garden room to be a workshop/office/games room and with the potential to be turned into a guest house in the future. However, the intended use should dictate the design of your garden room. For instance, an art studio will benefit from lots of windows for light while a workshop will need to conserve wall space for hanging tools; a cinema room will need better insulation than a gym and a music room will require more sound proofing than an office…
Will a garden room add value to your house?
In most cases, yes. Adding square footage to your house is the most assured method of adding value – more so than decorating or upgrading a bathroom for instance. Despite a garden room being separate it’s often included in gross internal area when selling. Furthermore, a garden room can free up a room in the main house such as a bedroom or reception room. Or it may allow you to convert an integral garage in to the main house.
For balance, I’ll give a couple of caveats:
- I removed a garage to build my garden room. If a buyer for the house wanted to tinker with cars or motorbikes, I’ve put them off as there’s now no garage. In London that might only be 1 in 100 buyers. The other 99 will certainly favour the garden room.
- I sometimes see garden rooms take up a significant portion of the garden. Personally I favour outside space, gardening and sunshine so I wouldn’t buy that house. Others may prefer a small and low maintenance garden so would prefer having the garden room. Overall, make sure the size of your build is proportional to the house and garden.
- I used to look at valuation reports for a living and there are a few areas of the UK where the re-build value of a house (for buildings insurance purposes) exceeded the value of the property. In cases like this doing building work of any kind is unlikely to add much value, certainly less than the cost of the work so have a look at your buildings insurance, is the rebuild cost less than value? If so, a garden room will likely add value.
So think about who are the likely buyers for your house when drawing up your plans. However, if you’re in your forever home, do what you like!
The best news? If you self-build, your almost guaranteed to add more value than it costs…
To self-build or not to self-build?
That does tend to be the ultimate question. It’s not always an easy choice deciding whether to pay a garden room company or to build it yourself but a garden room, unlike an extension, is a big opportunity to add real space and value to your home without causing disruption to the house or having to deal with too many regulations. Here are what I think are the main advantages of self-building:
- A bespoke building that is exactly to your specifications in terms of size, shape, look, finishes and layout.
- No issues with builders if things don’t go to plan.
- A higher quality finish. After all, no one cares more about your garden room than you!
- Gaining skills you can put to use elsewhere in your home.
- One big discount!
However, if you do decide to pay a company this free course will still give you a much greater understanding of the building principles so you can confidently compare quotes and challenge a certain method or material they plan to use. A middle ground would be to design your garden room yourself and then employ builders to do the heavy lifting!
What skills do I need?
I’m a firm believer that you do not need any building experience at all for this project. If you’re handy at DIY that will help, everything else I explain in the videos.
Wondering about me? Here is a quick video summing up my limited projects before building the garden room:
What will it cost to build?
This is probably the most frequently asked question (no doubt because I haven’t yet addressed the subject in my videos yet) but also one of the most difficult to answer. Put simply, it depends! Garden rooms have no firm definition and can be anything from a slightly glorified shed to a small house and everything in between. The size of your garden room will be a big factor in the costs and so will the utilities you require. For instance, if you have a shower room, you’ll need to connect waste and water.
But I know that’s not the answer you’re looking for so as a ballpark I’d say between £7,000 – £20,000. It can be done for less, or more, but the majority should fall within that range. Of course, your time should also be factored in unless, like me, you just love building things and view it as a fun challenge.
Just as importantly is the amount you’ll save by doing it yourself. There are usually extra costs with the garden room companies and larger ones may set you back £30-£50,000 and may still be not quite what you were after. If you don’t have that amount to spend then doing it yourself will be the only way to get what you want 🙂
Still on board? Great! Let’s talk about tools…
What tools do I need?
As it turns out, nothing too fancy! You’ll see the tools I use throughout the videos and other than the usual household ones (hammer, drill, tape measure, pliers etc), there are only a few big outlays you need to make:
A circular saw to cut your timber such as this one from Evolution Tools.
An impact driver to drive your screws. This Erbauer one served me well.
A good quality long spirit level (1.8m+) like this.
Often Aldi and Lidl offer their own brand of power tools which are more than capable for building a garden room – worth keeping an eye out for!
2023 update: Since completing my garden room I’ve moved home and have an entire house to renovate so I’ve expanded and upgraded my power tools to a brushless & cordless set. This decision was based on 3 principles:
- Going cordless is freeing! It speeds up DIY and there are no extension cords to trip over.
- Using the right tool for the job. Sure, you can cut OSB with a jig saw but a circular saw is quicker and made for the job.
- They’re expensive in £ terms, yes, but a £200 tool that will last you 15 years is the same cost as hiring a tradesman for a day. When looked in those terms, they represent incredible value!
When should I build?
Depending on where you live in the world, summer and the shoulder months of spring and autumn are the likely times when you’ll want to tackle the bulk of the building work. Here in the UK, it’s not much fun getting out there in the cold, wet and dark of winter and keeping the area dry is a struggle but I’m always impressed by those who crack on during winter.
That said, any time of year is good to be thinking and planning your garden room. I started my research in October and was ready to go when summer came around!
Task: If you haven’t already, start thinking about how you will use your garden room and what you want out of it. Think about the important factors such as size, ceiling height, natural light and warmth.
I’d recommend watching the video series all the way through first to get a good understanding of how everything fits together and then come back here and go through the course one page at a time. See the full series here.
Ready? Okay, click here to go to the next stage: